The Leeds Corn Exchange, as the city has been chosen as the location for the channel’s new national headquarters.
Photograph: Channel 4/PA

It is in the DNA of most journalists to feel a profound sense of scepticism about new schemes, especially if they started as dodgy ill-thought through political initiatives. And yet, the decision by Channel 4 to open a “national HQ” in Leeds is great.

Leaving aside that the organisation is only committed to moving one quarter of its 840 staff to Yorkshire, the decision could be a proper attempt to withstand the economic tide destroying news outside London.

The collapse in local newspapers, and the increasing concentration of the media in the capital, is a disaster for democracy and diversity. High property prices in London mean that only those who can already afford to live there (often through wealthy or even just local parents) can afford to spend any time at all trying to make it in the national media.

Many journalists, young and old, would love the chance of making their careers as well as their homes closer to where they grew up – whether in Glasgow, Bristol or Leeds. National journalism will be all the better for it. Why should there be more Channel 4 journalists in Washington than any British city outside London?

Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow, who talked of the failure of the media to venture beyond the capital in his 2017 MacTaggart lecture, was full of praise for the decision. He also has the advantage of having a child at Leeds university. Few senior members of staff are looking for houses in the north.

Doubts still remain over cost. Offices in Leeds, Glasgow and Bristol will only work if the channel is committed to develop local talent rather than insist on ferrying its stars between London and Leeds each day. Imagine, not only might we see all ages, genders and races reflected back at us from the television, but accents too.